Fast Photo Shoot

My mom had a great idea for a fast photoshoot before the wedding since everyone is all dressed up.  

However, I didn't allow enough time for it really!!  So I'm pretty sad I didn't get ALL the shots I wanted.

But glad we got some!

My pink parents:

My Michael being silly:

Sometimes I feel like I blinked and my baby became a 5 year old:

My sister came down to visit us too, which was great!  The newest addition to our family, Cory, came with her:

My mom got some great pictures of ALL of us together on her camera! I hope I can get the file when I go home next time!

We loved spending some good quality family time together.  We just love Texas and miss our family.  Hoping to get back there one day, but we'll see where our lives take us!

Houston - Rehearsal Dinner

Friday, May 18th:  Rehearsal Dinner!

Michael had a great time being ringbearer.  These 2 were born only 4 months apart.

They were both so cute!  Holding hands wasn't too popular between the two of them, but it's just for one aisle:

And we were so thankful that all they had to do was walk down the aisle and sit with us!  Our ringbearer had to stand up front and present the rings!  I can't believe we made a 5 yr old stand there for the whole ceremony!

Christina and Matt practicing for their big day:

The rehearsal dinner was at Los Cucos - LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!  Margaritas, beer, fajitas - what's not to love!  It was delicious and we were so honored that they asked Michael to be a part of their special day.

So far, trial run 1:  No ninja moves down the aisle.  That was our biggest concern.  We had to have a talk about that.  How ninja moves are not ok in the church down the aisle.  That's ANOTHER talk I never imagined myself having to have in my lifetime.

Texas Part One

We had a super fantastic 6 days in Texas.  Compared to our yearly pilgrimage to Texas for a month duration, the 6 days just FLEW by!

We were so excited to see my Mom for both her 60th birthday AND Mother's Day.

My parents picked us up from the airport and we had to immediately stop at the Asian super market (they have 3 within 5 minutes drive of them *super jealous am I*).  Upon driving up, I see the sign for:

"Live Crawfish."

Awwww yeaaaahhh...

One phone call to Brian later and we decided to have a crawfish boil the day Brian flew into town.

Here's Michael with his first up close look at a "mudbug":

This was just ONE small bowl of crawfish.  We bought 35 lbs.  For 4.5 people.  Go big or go home:

We sat down to some serious grubbin':

Michael is a brave one:

Baby Cat won't eat enchiladas or mexican food or a TON of other things.  But he gave crawfish a go!

I even heard him tell someone, "You have to suck the heads too."

NICE.  It is so interesting how he won't eat bell peppers.  But he'll eat crab, crawfish, fish sauce, cha lua (asian ham), all sorts of hard to eat Asian food.  Goes to show you some of your taste buds are inherited!

My dad seems to never age:

My mom either!  Look at her chowin' down.  Look at my DIY-er Mom strippin' her wall paper down!  So proud of the kitchen remodel she has started!

For the first part of our trip, we hung out with my mom and dad and they spent some great quality time with Michael.  He ate 6 bowls of pho in 2 days.  He just LOVES my mom's cookin'.  I can't hold a candle to it!

Play Time

I LOVE SUMMER!!  No having to be somewhere at 8:30am (THE HUMANITY!!).  No set plans.

I love it even more as a mom now than I did as a kid.

We put together his Hot Wheels Wall Track that Christina/Matt gave him for being ringbearer and it is pretty cool:

I am planning to repaint this room pretty soon.  so I'll have to take it down.  But it goes up with those 3M Commando stickie thingies so I'm hoping I can just get some more of those.

Now this picture, you have to enlarge using that new Blogger enlarge it function to barely see what is going on:

If you look closely - it is a long, WET, dirty, Muddy trail of footprints.

Michael and Abbey had a water gun fight and were reloading in the kitchen.  Luckily, I had to mop anyways so I let them REALLY muck it up because I  needed SOMETHING to force me to clean.  I am not a clean person by nature.

I love summer!  I might take a picture of our mulch pile next for you to see.  I've been spending some time with it lately.

Last Day of Preschool: June 6, 2012

Wednesday:  June 6, 2012

Michael's Last Day of Preschool.

They had a program, which was very well done!!  They had separate ones for every class this year, which was excellent.  Last year, they had ALL the preschool classes together and that was a little bit of mayhem.

Here they are:

There was a lot of variety in the program, which I loved!  They had each kid come up and say what they wanted to be when they grew up.  We got some great answers:

"When I grow up, I want to be a teenager"

"...A movie star"

This cuter than cute little girl came up and said,  "A COP!"

Unexpected and hilarious!

One little girl came down the stairs doing the cutest hops and skips.  But had to hop and skip back because they hadn't called her name quite yet.  And when they did, she did the same cute hop and skips back down.  I just love this age.

Michael came up and said, "An Engineer."

I may be Asian, but I can swear I'm not feeding him this stuff subliminally.  He wants to be just like his Daddy so we know this is the answer for now.  We'll see when he grows up.  But as engineers ourselves, we feel the need to really explain to him what engineering really entails.  For me, I thought I "liked calculus and chemistry" so engineering naturally.  CHEN204 came as one of the biggest shocks of my life.

I digress, back to my graduating Michael:

Then, came some cute songs and nursery rhymes and pledges.

Then some kind of bean bag dance:

Handbells wasn't so popular.  I was just excited Michael got the super mario one:

Michael with his just super sweet and wonderful teachers:

They both were excellent.  So great at feeding back and just being warm and loving with Michael.  They taught him so much and even had science programs for the kids.

I asked Michael where he wanted to go for lunch for his last day of school.  His initial answer was RITA'S WATER ICE!!

I told him that was fine AFTER lunch.

For lunch, maybe McDonalds?  Or Mi Cocina?  Or Capriottis?

Instead, Michael picked the place 40 minutes away:

Can't say I complained about that!  Here's Michael with his buffet plate.  He loves buffets where he can pick what he wants to eat:

No worries - we made it to Rita's!  For those of you who have never heard of Rita's, it's a water ice place.  Which is a fancy way of saying a "smooth sno cone in a cup."  It actually is quite good and we've been quite smitten with it as a family:

Here's Michael's Scrapbook from School.  I just love his self portrait and that silly picture of him on the cover:

This is a funny montage of Michael:

And again with the engineering:

 I like the way he has dad working at the computer.  It is partly true!  And only what he sees!  We need to drag him into a chem lab one day.  ;)

A perfect end to a wonderful year.

Michael

Well - Michael has had a bit of a rough week.  Friday before Memorial Day, he had a fever in the night.  He was fine Sat/Sunday.  However, Memorial Day Monday, he woke up from his nap with a 102 fever, green stuff out of his nose, and a cough.

We couldn't get him into the dr until Wednesday because we had a water heater coming Tuesday and Brian's car was in the shop that same day so he had my car at work.

It was an expensive Tuesday.

Wednesday - Michael was diagnosed with pneumonia.  :(  Poor little guy!  He was given 5 days of antibiotics (kids' equivalent of a z-pack) and lots of breathing treatments.

Today, he is feeling better and finished his antibiotics/breathing treatments yesterday.  I am still worried about his cough because it is still pleghmy, but it is starting to sound like it's loosening things up occasionally.

We have a followup on Wednesday and the Dr will tell us more about what's going on.  I am praying for healing of his little chest!

Then, yesterday, he got pegged in the face by a baseball thrown from his Dad.

Le Sigh.

However, he finally got to go to school this morning!  I received some pretty awesome things from the school at the end of the year.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Michael's school this year.  The teachers are so warm and welcoming.  Michael has learned so much and truly enjoyed going to school.

They sent home a great scrapbook of his activities this year - I will post some pictures of some of the pages.

But I what I was most proud of was his progress report.  Not only did he master all the skills of the year (and them some) - but he had this comment from his teachers:

"Michael had a great year!  He has such a desire to learn that he is a joy to teach.  Michael gives every activity his best effort.  We will miss him."

That's all I can ask from our little guy.  I am elated that he loves to learn because I hope that will intrinsically motivate him.  That in combination with giving his best effort is all I can ask for in school!

Pictures to come later.  There's some really cute stuff from his scrapbook.
P

To-Do-Lists

So I was wandering through my old blog posts and found this to do list from 10/27/2011:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area. 
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

Sadly, many of the items on this list - are STILL there.  Here is what it looks like using the "cross out" font that I see on all those DIY blogs:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area.  (fixed leaking water under faucet, but faucet is still wobbly)
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

*shrink away in shame...*

Home Decor Items we HAVE Accomplished:

• Painted Michael's room and installed chair rail
• Purchased new lamps to match master bedroom
• Purchased new couch for main level to replace main level couches that were moved to the basement.
• Decided on color scheme and curtain fabric for main level family room.
• Purchased small organizing cabinet for kitchen area for Michael's supplies and my office supplies.

Not terribly impressive.  

NECESSARY HOME REPAIRS

• Replace leaking water heater
• Replace door knob on front door, which decides when it actually wants to work.
• Replace doorbell (plastic busted on the front of it)
• Replace kitchen faucet (very wobbly)
• Call Electrician to fix light switch in the garage which always trips the electricity to the garage and kitchen when switched on.

Those are the priority items and need to be done.  NEED being the operative word.

To cut down my pretty long list up there, I am going to list 7 interior design goals I would like to accomplish.  Mind you, these are not lofty, but maybe I will do a status update on them in a month:

UNNECESSARY HOME ITEMS:

• Research and decide on home office location (basement or guest room) with layout finalized.
• Paint living room
• Purchase curtain fabric for living room
• Sew living room curtains
• Purchase curtain rod for living room curtains.
• Assemble Michael's desk and place it in his room.

I just want to use that cross out font function. THat's pretty fun and satisfies the task list making side of me.

Eel

Michael graduated from his swim class!  First try!  Even his swim teacher seemed a little surprised at his progress!  :)  Thus, he is in the "eel" level now instead of "pike plus."

Yesterday at swim lesson, he swam out to where the teacher was, turned on his back to float and kick, then turned back on his stomach, doggy paddled a bit, flipped back on his back and then back on his front!

Amazing!  So proud of our little man! AND this is with him missing swim lesson last week because we were in Texas - AND he still has 2 more classes to go - so he advanced to the next level after only 3 lessons of this current session!

Which leads me to a discussion I had with a fellow mom friend about this very thing.  Sometimes, I frustrate myself with teaching Michael something "early" just because I feel like he should already be doing it.  The reality of this (and the competitive mothering that tends to come into play) is that kids learn things when they are good and ready to learn it.  There's no point in tearing our hair out when they just aren't ready.

Michael is good and ready to learn how to swim, which explains his rather quick progression!

And that makes me a proud mama to a little "eel."

Joke

On the way to t-ball, Abbey was telling jokes she read from Highlights Magazine (as you can imagine...).

Michael decided to join in and said, "Hey, listen to my joke!"

"I was walking along and a chicken started pecking at me.  But I did not stop!"

Pause.

Huge laughter because it was hilarious how BAD that joke was!

Well, it must have been a pretty good joke if everyone in the car was cracking up.

I am thinking he gets his mom's "talent" in joke telling.

When we were getting the kids buckled in the car,  I hear this conversation:

Abbey:  This car smells funny.
Michael:  That's my dad.

Cleaning...

So I am cleaning.  Michael asked for his friends from school to come over tomorrow, which means I HAVE to clean.  :)

Around 10:30pm - I went upstairs to get something and I hear thumping in his room.

"Hi Mommy!  I was waiting for you to give me hugs and kisses."

Oops - Brian usually comes and gets me if Michael wants hugs and kisses, but this did not happen today!

Don't have to give ME an excuse to delay cleaning yet again (kind of like this blog post at 12:22am).

I cuddled up with Michael and we talked a little bit about our day.  Abbey came with us today to Michael's t-ball game so we talked a little about how he focused and did his best.  We talked about how fun it was to play t-ball and how delicious his snack of Cheetos and CapriSun was (t-ball is mainly about the snack right?!).

We talked about having friends who do not focus and distract us from doing our best - are sometimes not the best choices to have as friends.  Michael has a teammate who consistently expresses how much he does not want to be there and it shows.  So we talked a bit about that.  Michael has started to notice this "friend's" behavior and the difference between "focused, hard working, with a good attitude" and "not focused, not paying attention, and bad attitude."

In the middle of our conversation, Michael says, "Mommy, you are the best!"

Well, how about that.  It is a lucky thing that I think he (and his dad) are the best too.

Pretty glad I popped in there to snuggle at 10:30pm instead of saying, "I need to MOP!!!"

First Picture in May Downloaded

In case you wonder about my "workflow" for my personal pictures, I download pictures from my camera to my hard drive throughout the month.

Since I upload pictures throughout the month, it is always interesting to me what DAY is my first image.

For the month of May, it is the 22nd.  PRETTY pathetic.  That means - that up until today, I did not have a single image to upload.

Not-a-one.

I will post later about Christina's uber fun wedding.  

However, for now, I will share our first downloaded img in May:

Pinterest Drive in Movie box.  I tell ya - my 31 order came in REALLY handy!  :)

We had to prop the right flap up with his butterfly holder to keep his food on there.  Have to say Michael was pretty ecstatic to watch cars in this today!

Abbey is over now - took one look at it - and said - that's weird.

WELL - I have a WHOLE SLEW OF PINTEREST MOMMIES THAT THINK IT IS GREAT!

And my Michael too!

A day in the life I tell ya!

Onesies

This morning, in my groggy slumber at 7:20, Michael came into my room and said, "Mommy! I don't even think about playing Wii anymore! But now it is Tuesday and I think I will play Wii on Tuesdays. And wear onesies. Have a good sleep Mommy!" He gave me a kiss and off he ran. I went back to sleep and thought about at what age Carters stops making onesie pajamas. Will be a sad day for Michael! I will blog about the wedding later in the week as well as my experiences flying in first class. On the flight back, Brian took care of Michael. Luck would have it that this flight would be the one where we got TVs for each seat! $8 later, Brian and Michael settled in to watch Star Wars on Tv and take naps. LUCKY guys!

Caught Up and The Frivolity of It All

Here I thought I was SUPER behind on my posts.  

I wasn't.

Apparently my life is not as interesting as I thought.  Or rather, it is uneventful, which I think is a rather good thing.  I'm not one for drama.

SO - here's a post about interior design.

I'm pretty bad about making interior design decisions.  I'll buy some fabric that I'm hot and heavy about and let it sit in my closet for a year and then decide I'm not hot and heavy about it anymore.

But then - I get a kick of inspiration - and I re-do a whole room.

Perhaps you remember my split-pea-green soup traditional living room:

Well - I found this fabric at Joanns last week and decided to give it a go with a wall color I bought a year ago:

The color is a grey-light aqua-blue.  I love it still.

And the grey/white/yellow ikat/damask leans toward my more "transitional"decor style as deemed by many "reputable" decorating style quizzes I have taken.

What is transitional?  It means you like classic items/silhouettes but with a more modern twist.

So - this damask is classical - but it is modernized by 1) the color palette and 2) the size of the repeat, which is larger than standard damask, and 3) it has the kind of "painted" effect of an ikat pattern.

The yellow in the fabric pulls in with the yellow in my kitchen.  SO I think it's a GO. 

I'm still thinking though - so I do a little pairing around with a throw pillow I already have:

Then with my current pillows:

Then - with an odd assortment of items in my living room to see if it would pull together:

And I think it will!  Well, at least I like it.  If you don't, you can say so, and it's absolutely fine!  To each their own.

Originally, I thought that I would paint the walls grey - but I found some blog posts with pictures of that (or yellow walls) and it just seemed kind of flat and uninteresting and too matchy matchy.

So I threw it up with my original paint color and I like the contrast.

I'm off.  As soon as I am back from Texas, I will be painting my living room and marching forward.  All I needed was an inspiration point and I'm sold.

A pet peeve of the new blogger layout?  When I choose my size as "XLARGE" to display, my vertical pictures are fine, but my horizontal ones get cropped to squares. ARRRRGGGHHH!!!

SO I've been choosing "LARGE" for my horizontal images and "XLARGE" for my vertical.  My next plan of action to is to chk the html code and see if there is a restriction on the size width that I just need to change.  But that is for another day.

Slip 'n Slide Debut April 21

I think that every year, I need to blog a posting that's entitled the slip 'n slide debut - just to compare how early/late it happens.

This year, it was April 21.

Michael was pretty thrilled:

Brian was wishing his-former-clarinet-playing-band-nerd-of-a-wife had to do this job:

The filling commences:

And then the job gets delegated:

So dad can get back to doing this:

While mom goes around taking pictures of her azalea bushes:

I just like this picture of Michael in our yard for some reason:

Playing with the little ramp that projects you into the pool:

Getting his belly completely scratched up to do this:

Guess we should have checked for rocks and sticks BEFORE we put down the slip 'n slide.

I spent some of the afternoon on the deck, reading southern living and listening to pandora while Michael took a nap.  It was an afternoon of bliss!  Especially after having a seriously fun family session in the morning.  Wish all my sessions could have been like the one I had that morning!

Then the next week - back to highs in the lower 50's and drizzly.  Spring is so pretty and nice, but so bipolar at the same time.

First T-Ball Game of the Season!

On April 25th, Brian made his debut as an official Little League Manager/Head Coach.

He did awesomely well!  Check out this nice mitt bump props from a player:

Doing warm ups in front of the trailer park by the ball field.  

Don't get me started about the styx I live near.

Michael rocking his warm ups:

Team ready for action - not in numerical order:

Michael up to bat:

Game ON!

Michael has a pretty decent swing.  Here he is running to 1st:

The parents in the stands had lots of positive feedback for B.  They love that he is teaching their kids important t-ball skills and also encouraging a nice team spirit.

As Brian told his co-workers:

"I teach them skills.  And I don't take S&*T from little kids."

NICE.  Apparently - parents like that!  :)

Blue Rockin' It

This weekend, our neighbor gave us some free tickets to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks play ball!

We jumped on that like a family that loves to sit in 50 degree weather with a little drizzle.

You could say we were hard core and desperate for something fun to do that was different!

Anyways!  We showed up at 4:15 for a 6:05 game.  We were THAT excited OR really poor planners at our day and did not have enough time to do something different.

SO - we explored the Wilmington Water Front, which as the parking attendant so positively endorsed with a shrug of his shoulders and said, "It's a waterfront."

Yes, he was correct.  But we were almost 2 hours early for the game, so we enjoyed their mini waterfront with 3 restaurants on it.

Then, we waited to get let in by the gates.

Once inside, it was the most lucrative ball park experience we have had to date.  For $2, we got a Blue Rocks backpack, a kids club hat for Michael, and THREE stadium plush seats.

AWwwww Yeaaaahhh....

The Blue Rocks Kids Club hat was already awesome - Michael wanted it.  But then when we turned it around, it said, "TEXAS ROADHOUSE" on the back.

DOUBLE Awwwww.....yeahhhhhhh....

So we sat in the very very cold weather and ate chicken strips and hotdogs. I took Michael over to the bouncy houses where we spent $12 on bouncing time and this cool wiffle bat ball thingy that MIchael REALLY loved.

After the 3rd inning and some drizzle with a 70% chance of rain in the forecast, we left and called it a successful day!